


Okay

by antelucem



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Related, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, POV Jean Kirstein, kinda sad man, very vague expedition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 05:53:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1887378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antelucem/pseuds/antelucem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The life of a soldier entails death and agony and blood, but she helps make it a little better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Okay

**Author's Note:**

> I am Jeankasa trash. The expedition this story is set around is very vague because I could never do the plot of the manga justice because, again, ya know, the whole Jeankasa trash thing.

She's strong.

He knows that.

He knows that she's stronger than all of them, matched only by Levi, that she's a titan fighting machine ready to kick ass and take names.

He knows that she could kick _his_ ass any day.

But he still worries.

So before the mission, when everybody is a blur of green cloaks and grim faces, he tries to find her in the midst of soldiers and horses and terror. He's searching frantically, ignoring the way his 3DMG knocks against his thighs and the looks people throw his way because _goddammit_ if he doesn't find her now he can't—

"Jean."

Hearing her voice say his name still shocks him from time to time, but he whirls around and sees her ready for battle, gear on and scarf looped tightly around her neck.

Of course she would be the one to find him.

"Mikasa," he breaths, and he wonders if she can hear the relief in his voice. "Are you…are you ready?"

"Yes," she nods. Her eyes are dark with determination, and he feels the magnetic pull of her gaze. "Are you?"

"No," he replies honestly, and he kicks at the dust around them. "I get the same feeling before every expedition."

She doesn't ask what it is, just takes his hand. He lets out a surprised noise because they really shouldn't even be talking at all—Buchwald and the rest of his squad is waiting for him, Mikasa should be meeting up with Armin to go over plans—but he squeezes her hand instinctively.

"You're going to be fine," she says. He feels calluses in her hand that match his own, and he wonders absentmindedly if today he'll lose a finger or a hand or his life.

"You're not going to die today" is what she means to say, but the words are the same anyway.

"I don't know about me," Jean admits, ignoring the way she stills all of a sudden. "But I know about _you_ and I'll know you'll do fine and kick titan ass anyway. But, still…I just want to tell you to stay alive. Please."

She remembers the words "stay alive" and how a certain boy reacted to them long long ago, so this time she forgets about stoicism matched with hot blooded heroism and pulls Jean in for a hug.

He tightens his arms around her and places his head under a chin for a second, and then just like that, they need to be on their separate ways again.

Jean mounts his horse, Mikasa discusses last minute details with Armin, Erwin yells the command to leave.

And they're off, the damned scouting legion, and Jean still feels like today's the day he's going to bite the dust.

But he thinks of whispered confessions and fingers threading through fingers and quiet companionship, and he shakes it all off.

He kisses the flat of his blade. 

* * *

He still hasn't gotten used to killing them. He doesn’t think that anybody has.

But in some sick, horrid way, he's afraid that one day he might get used to their killing, might get used to numbers Erwin reads after every expedition of casualties, might get used to watching soldiers get picked out of the sky and eaten like they haven't trained for years and years to get here.

Jean latches on to the back of an eight meter class, one that's slightly faster than the others, and performs a strike form that's actually slightly messy but all the power is in the blades and the chopping, and it's dead.

His comrades are fighting too, and every once in a while he hears a scream and a crunch of bones and it's hell all over again.

He doesn't let himself think of her when he fights.

He spots another one—seven meters this time and fairly slow—, clicks new blades into place, and flies with his gear.

He kills over and over and over.

* * *

 In the back of his mind, distantly in the din of shouts and blades and titans, he remembers that he's only really talked with her once about dying.

He doesn't know what brought it on either, just knows that they found each other by the well on a rare night off months ago, when she was done visiting Eren and he was done losing his shit sobbing into the walls of an empty set of barracks.

He tried for a smile, but she knew he had been crying, and his shoulders sagged with defeat.

"I'm glad you're okay," she said quietly, and she drew some water into a bucket.

He shrugged. "Better than most," he said, and the weight of his words crippled him because it was all so _unfair and why the_ fuck _am_ I _still alive when so many have lost and so many have been ripped_ apart _and_ eaten _and_ —

"Hey."

He looked up, and swallowed. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize," she replied, and she held her bucket by her hip.

"I can't stand the idea of dying," Jean blurted out, and he didn't watch for her reaction. They'd both seen far too much death. "I can't stand the idea of being burned on a pyre in a pile of bodies. I can't...I should stop."

He looked up at her, and she didn't move in for a hug or one of their tentative kisses. She placed a hand over his instead, and spoke in a low voice. "Life is for the living, Jean. You fight, you win, you live. We continue fighting, okay?"

He nodded.

He resolved that night to continue fighting.

And he continues to fight now.

* * *

After they've finally reached a safe area and night has fallen, Jean knows that three members of his squad have lost their lives, maybe twenty other people have on the first day alone, and they still aren't at the area they need to recapture yet.

The legion sets up camp with crude tents and alternating shifts of night watch, although nobody sleeps, really.

He finds her watching Eren's limbs knit themselves back together, and he waits patiently until she stands up and leaves the area.

"Mikasa," he says, and she turns around, nodding in greeting even though they both know he's been hanging around for the past twenty minutes.

He notices some dried blood on the side of her face, but she looks wonderfully whole and _alive_ , and when he steps forward to pull her into a tight hug, she doesn't object.

"Hi," he murmurs into her hair, and she lifts her face up to press a small kiss to the underside of his jaw. "We made it."

"I know," she says.

"How many did you get today?" he asks, although it's more like wondering out loud.

"Five," she replies. "Three assists."

"I think I might have saw you once," he muses. "All the titans were running in the opposite direction."

She smiles, and he feels it against his throat.

And even in the fucked up mess of the Scouting Legion and the even bigger fucked up mess of his life, and even though tomorrow there will be more battles and deaths and more times of agony, Jean finds a moment of peace.

"I’m glad you're okay," he says, and if she hears the waver in his voice she doesn't acknowledge it with a question or an observation.

She just holds him a little bit tighter.

And he feels okay.


End file.
